Fly covered pig carcass was 'unfit to eat'

Swindon Borough Council environmental health officers uncovered the butchered body of a second pig lying in a paddling pool in a utility room.

The two men responsible for butchering the carcasses told Swindon magistrates they were sorry, after JPs heard the pair were planning to sell the pig meat at a festival in Maidstone, Kent, the day after the council raid.

Hearing that the meat posed a potential public health risk, magistrates ordered the bodies of the two pigs were destroyed.

Rosemary Heath, for Swindon Borough Council, said environmental health officers had been tipped off by a neighbour that two men were butchering pigs on a table in the back garden. The carcasses had been delivered the previous day, on Thursday, July 11.

Two council officers visited the house on Friday. In a utility area off the kitchen they discovered a pig carcass with its head still attached lying in a paddling pool. Another carcass was found in a barbecue in the back garden, covered in flies.

The men said they had planned to serve the pig meat at a ticketed event in Maidstone the following day.

They had bought the pigs from a farm in Wales, but were reluctant to be more specific. There were no health marks on the pigs’ bodies to indicate they had been slaughtered in an approved abattoir.

That mattered, Ms Heath said, because abattoirs conduct checks on pigs slaughtered – rejecting animals suffering from conditions like septicaemia.

Without the proper checks there was a very real risk of food unfit for human consumption entering the food chain, she added.

Asish Limbu, 30, and Keshar Rana, 30, both of Charlton Close, Penhill, raised no objection to the council’s application to destroy the pig carcasses under the Food Safety Act.

Appearing before the court in a smart blue suit, Limbu apologised to magistrates: “We just want to say sorry. It’s our fault. We are happy to pay the fine.

“It will never happen again.”

Magistrates approved the council’s request for a food condemnation order. Chairman of the bench Jonathan Furlonger told the two men: “We are satisfied that what you were doing contravened the Food Safety Act and therefore we are going to make an order for the condemnation of these pig carcasses.”

The men were also ordered to pay costs of £1,610.